Caged
by ashhead
Summary: When the plane crashes Kate lands in the middle of the beach. What do the Losties do with a murderer in their midst? Skate
1. Chapter 1

There were bodies strewn all across the beach. The agonised screams of terrified people fill his ears and smoke thick air cloys at his lungs. Every time he moves he feels a warm stickiness trickle further down his side, but he pushes through the haze of pain that accompanies it and instead scrambles a few metres across the sand to examine the next body. He can't move fast enough, every second he spends treating someone is a second too many for those bleeding to death around him. He wonders if the dead outnumber the living, but has no time to consider this. Examining the woman in front of him, a large blonde girl in her twenties, he finds a piece of metal embedded in her head. He doesn't allow himself to feel anything for her, he doesn't have time.

On the run again, he's stopped in his tracks by the pregnant girl's renewed screams. He sees her claw backwards through the sand, and now he does feel something. She can't go into labour, not now. He can't deliver a baby, it wasn't what he was trained for. And whilst normally he'd have confidence that he'd be able to manage regardless, if he stopped to deliver her baby, how many of the people on the beach would die because he placed more value on her than on them.

Still, he runs through the sand, the pain from the gash in his side causing him to stumble every few steps. He needs to know what he's facing, even if he can't deal with it. Perhaps the lifeguard boy could help out. He obviously had some first aid training, even if he was fairly incompetent. Right now, Jack would take whatever he could get.

When he got over though to where she was, it became apparent that it wasn't labour that was causing her screams. In the sand, bizarrely out of place, even in this idyllic hell they'd fallen too, was a gun.

Trying to ignore what that might mean, Jack sat down in front of the girl, trying desperately to calm down. "Claire. Look at me. I need you to take deep breaths." He took her hand, trying to get her to follow his breathing.

Hurley tapped on Jack's shoulder insistently, still slightly in shock. Jack turned to him, irritated that no one was capable of managing for two seconds without him. But Hurley's deathly pale face as he gestured over Jack's shoulder and his worried, "Dude," stopped Jack from snapping at him.

Sunlight glinted off metal, leading his eyes to what they'd overlooked in his hurry to get to Claire. Laid awkwardly in the sand, although breathing normally and not bleeding from any obvious source, was a dark-haired girl. Pushing a strand of hair aside, he picked up her wrists to examine the handcuffs. Her wrists were bruised quite badly, the skin torn in places. She'd had the handcuffs on for a while, and it was obvious that she was what the gun was for.

Running his hand across his head, he tried to think what he was possibly supposed to do now. He was a doctor, he fixed people, but it wasn't his job to deal with something like this.

"Hurley, I need you to take Claire a bit further down the beach and try to calm her down." Hurley paid no heed to what Jack said, staring at the girl with the handcuffs in some sort of horrified fascination.

"Hurley? Can you do that?" Jack didn't have time for this, there were too many people who needed his help.

"What? Oh… um… sure, I guess." Hurley helped Claire off the ground, still not completely taking his attention away from the handcuffs.

"Just call me if there's a problem, ok?" Hurley nodded, paying attention to what he was doing finally, and led a shaken Claire away from their discovery.

Jack watched them go for a second, before picking the gun up off the sand. It was cold in his hands, he didn't like the feel of it. Still, he wasn't going to leave it lying around, so he slid it into his jacket pocket.

Looking around him, it took him a second to find what he was looking for. Someone who looked capable, but who wasn't doing anything useful. Sat on a piece of wreckage, smoking a cigarette no less, and reading some crumpled bit of paper was a man that Jack would normally avoid like the plague. He had the look of a troublemaker. Still, he was the only person Jack could see who wasn't either screaming hysterically or doing something useful.

"You, I need you to watch this girl for me." Jack's voice carried down the beach, thick with confidence and authority.

Realising that it was him the man was addressing, Sawyer looked up, bristling at the tone. "Excuse me?"

Jack wasn't going to be spoken to like that, certainly not by the type of scum that this man so clearly was. "I need you to watch this girl, and to call me if she wakes up." He wasn't going to do any more explaining than that, he was needed elsewhere, and other people were going to have to pull their weight. With that thought he ran back off, leaving the man to do whatever he pleased. It was no longer Jack's problem.

Watching the man in the fancy suit dash off down the beach brought a smile to Sawyer's face. Some people lived for situations like this, for getting to organise others and be in charge for a while. Still, he waited until the man was out of sight before wandering over to the girl he'd been ordered to watch. He may as well take a look, see why the hell the man needed him to watch the girl.

When he found her it took a second for Sawyer to realise why the girl needed watching. She was a pretty little thing, sure, but she didn't seem to be in too bad of a shape, certainly not enough to require his watching her. But then she moved, and her wrists fell out of the fold of her jacket.

That brought a proper smile to Sawyer's face. Perhaps he would watch her after all.


	2. Chapter 2

The sun is streaming through her window, warming her face. She lays there without moving, feeling lazy, and far too comfortable to get up just yet. It's going to be a nice day. Pity she has to leave so soon, she likes it here. Still, she's been here too long already; she wasn't going to stay here at all, it's too isolated, but she needed the money.

With that thought in her head, she gets up, unable to lay still when she's supposed to be getting ready to leave. Except, she can't get up, every part of her body is aching and sore, and her arms throb with every tiny movement. She opens her eyes, but it isn't the warm sunshine beaming through her window that greets her, but a harsh glaring light that makes her squint.

"Where am I?" she forces the words out in a hoarse croak, her throat is desperately dry. The words aren't directed at anyone in particular, but there is only one man nearby, so she looks at him expectantly.

The man doesn't look at her, his eyes are cast out across the beach. She wonders whether or not he heard her, so she forces herself to sit up, surprised by the effort it takes. Metal scrapes at her wrists and blood oozes down her arms. She cries out, not because the pain is unbearable, but because she wasn't expecting it.

At this, the man does turn around, regarding her with eyes that seem to see through her. A fallen angel here to guide her through hell, his body everything that beauty is meant to be, but his eyes filled with hatred and his voice dripping with disdain, "Don't worry Freckles, the hero's on his way." As if his cryptic words mean anything at all, he turns his eyes away from her again, dismissing her.

It strikes her as incredibly fitting that even after she's died, she's still trapped in handcuffs. She'll never be able to get away from what she's done. Still, it's not all that bad for hell, there's far less fire than she was expecting, although she can smell smoke in the air.

Weaving into view is a man who doesn't fit into this bizarre hell at all. Of all things, he's wearing a suit. She remembers what the fallen angel had said, that the hero was coming. "Hero?"

Jack glances at the man who had said his name was Sawyer. All he receives in reply is a sarcastic smile. Trying to ignore him, Jack concentrates on the girl in front of him. He'd been hoping that the rescue would come by the time she woke up. She's dressed smartly, is attractive even, but she's clearly none of those things. They'd found the marshal who was transporting her, he was in a bad shape, but Jack thought that with any luck he might pull through. You don't get a US marshal for an escort unless you've done something pretty bad.

Still, he's a doctor, and he will help her. The first thing he notices is the trails of blood down her arms. It wasn't serious enough to distract him from those in worse conditions when he'd first seen her, but it was bad enough now to make him swallow. He's only been able to find a tiny amount of alcohol, and there are others that need it more than her, others that are more deserving. But that thought hits his conscience, he doesn't even know what she did, if it was justified. He can't damn her just because she's got a pair of handcuffs. Not that his damnation is going to have much effect on her, he can pour as much alcohol as he likes on her wrists, but unless the handcuffs come off, it won't help her, they'll get infected anyway. "I'm Jack, I'm a doctor," he tells her as he approaches her.

She regards him curiously. He's a doctor? So she's not dead? Where is she then? "I'm Kate," she murmurs softly, very unsure of herself.

"Kate," Jack smiles reassuringly at her as he picks up her wrists gently. He doesn't miss the way she flinches away from his touch, even though she tries to hide it. "Do you know where the keys to these are?"

She wants to shrink back into herself, for him to go away, to stop questioning her. Her crimes are there for everyone to see, bleeding out of her wrists, and he can't take his eyes off them. She pulls her hands back from him, wanting to hide them but finding that there isn't anywhere. "Edward has them, in his jacket."

"Edward is the marshal?" She nods, but she knows that it won't help him, Edward won't let her out of these, not with the effort it took for him to get her in them. Three years of his life wasted on chasing a little girl around the world. It didn't matter if they were killing her, he wouldn't let her go.

"Ok. I'll be back to check on you in the while. Sawyer will keep an eye on you until then." Sawyer, that's not even a real name. Even she made up better names than that. She watches as Jack whispers to Sawyer, she doesn't think that Sawyer is even listening. Hatred pours from him in waves.

Then Jack is gone, and it's just her and Sawyer. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette. With that resting between his lips he seems to relax. Rustling through the bag at his feet, he pulls out a bottle of water. "Doc says you need some water." He throws the bottle towards her, it land in the sand in front of her, and she greedily grabs at it.

She drinks half the bottle quickly, but instincts make her stop there and keep the rest for later. Instead she finds that he is coming towards her. He takes the bottle from her hands, she lets him only because she's in no position to fight back. He undoes the cap, and ever so carefully trickles some over her wrists. Having got the worst of the sand out of the cuts and having cleaned some of the dried blood off her lower arms, he places the cap back on the bottle and gives it back to her. Then he leaves her sat in the sand, and returns to the piece of metal he was perched on.

"Thank you," there is sincerity in her voice, and he finds himself embarrassed by it. If it had come from a con, he wouldn't have thought anything of it. But he wasn't conning her, he'd helped her because she needed his help. Sure, Jack had asked him to take care of her, but Jack was an idiot, and he'd done it because no one else was going to help her. They all sent scared looks down to this end of the beach, having heard that there was a criminal down there, and none of them came anywhere near. Which was why he was down here, but still he'd helped her just because she needed it.

He tries to say that it doesn't matter, but it comes out as some sort of unintelligible grunt, and he's grateful that she doesn't pursue it anymore. He lights his cigarette, and casts his eyes back down to the beach, to the destruction sprawled out before his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

She has barely moved since the crash, they watch her every time she does, so she tries not to. She hates them watching her, can feel their disgust, their hatred, and she just wants to run away from it all. She would as well, none of them could keep her here. But there would be no point. A rescue is on the way, she is certain of that, so slipping into the jungle and hiding wouldn't help her. They would find her, and that would only make things worse.

So she has stayed sat where the plane had dumped her. On one side is destruction, tears and smoke, on the other an approximation of heaven, waves crashing against golden sand, wind whispering through trees. Whilst the eyes that creep over her skin make her want to run through the destruction, her own eyes are glued to the beach, watching the waves wash over the sand. She likes the beach, so few of her childhood memories are happy, but some of the ones she cherishes the most have been spent at the beach. So she puts up with them watching her so that she can watch the waves.

The man who is watching her at the moment introduced himself as Sayid, he watches her less than the others have done, although more than Sawyer did. She's seen Sayid brawling on the beach with Sawyer. Sawyer had been with her until Jack had brought Sayid over to watch her. He'd stayed despite the fact that Jack had assigned different people to watch her in shifts. Not that Sawyer paid her any attention, but his presence had reassured her. She'd identified him as her protector when she had been delirious with dehydration, and she hadn't been able to shake that feeling despite his indifference.

But when Jack brought Sayid over, Sawyer had stalked down the beach without a word, unwilling to be anywhere near the man. They'd fought whilst Sawyer was on the way to get more water, Kate having drunk at least half of what had been given to him. She'd watched him as he went, he provided a welcome distraction from the little man who was wrapping tape around his fingers, and who paled to a ghostly colour every time he looked at her. Sawyer had argued with a man over the water, which was when Sayid had approached. It had quickly descended to a brawl, and Sawyer had been pulled off Sayid and sent down the beach. It was clear that it was Sawyer's fault, that his association with her had made him an outcast, despised by all. And while part of that was down to him, she knew that most of it was her, she contaminated everyone.

But Sawyer's reaction when Jack had brought Sayid had been interesting. She had thought him indifferent to what others assumed of him. The fact that he still resented Sayid showed that he was not. They'd taken Sayid's side, had dismissed Sawyer as an angry redneck out of hand, and it was this that he resented. But then, who was she to try and dissect his thoughts, she spent most of her life trying to avoid her own.

It had become dark by the time that Sawyer had returned back to where Kate was. It wasn't that far down the beach, but there was a definite separation between where she was and where everyone else was. He had, in the few hours that he spent with them, managed to annoy virtually everyone else on the beach. The only one he didn't annoy was Shannon, who was clearly dripping in money, and who found his attempts to humiliate her brother particularly amusing. She might be one to look up once they got off this island.

But the majority of his efforts had been spent dragging bodies into the fuselage. His efforts were met with averted gazes and in some cases open hostility. Not that he cared, he wasn't doing it for their approval. Doing it gave him time to pick through the stuff that had been left on the plane, just because there was a rescue coming didn't mean he couldn't benefit from people's stupidity. He'd managed to pocket himself a small amount of alcohol along with a packet of salted peanuts. Nothing fantastic, but enough to have made the afternoon worthwhile.

He'd managed to overhear the Hero's overly brave plan to venture into the jungle to find the cockpit. Unsurprisingly, Sawyer wasn't included. Even more unsurprisingly, Jack was organising shifts to take care of things in his absence. Apparently people were beginning to worry that the rescue hadn't come yet, so Jack was going to wander into the jungle to save them all, and leave them alone with the dying man and the killer.

Sawyer would have stayed to hear more of the riveting plan, but it was beginning to get dark, which made it difficult to find anything worthwhile in the wreckage. So he made his way back towards Kate, mostly because there were fewer people there, but partly because he wanted to see how she was doing.

Sayid was still there, not paying any attention. Some guard he made, staring off into space. She was still there though, as vacant as he was. "Captain Falafel, the Doc wants you."

Sayid looked irritated, but got up anyway, content that the girl wasn't going to attempt to escape, even if she was left in the care of this idiot.

Sawyer waited until he had gone before sitting down in front of the fire, and was then immediately annoyed upon realising that Sayid must have built the fire. Nothing else to do but sit by it though, it was beginning to get a touch cold. Kate was sat far away enough from it that she couldn't be getting any warmth from it. He wondered if she had even noticed that there was a fire, she was staring through the bleak light at the waves, seemingly oblivious to everything else.

"You can move closer to the fire," her attention flicked from the waves to him, and for a second he thought she might bolt. But then she nodded, and very carefully, very slowly, she raised herself up from the sand. There was a strange look on her face, and he wondered why saying that had such an effect on her. Still, when she sat down by the fire, the smile on her face was enough for him to leave her alone.

It was properly dark by the time Hurley got around to handing out the meals. Jack had asked him to do it earlier, but he was busy listening to what was going to happen tomorrow. But it didn't take very long, and everybody was happy to take it, well, everybody apart from Shannon, who refused hers. But Hurley gave hers to Claire, she still hadn't felt her baby move since the crash, and it was all Hurley could think of to reassure her.

There were a couple left, and as much as Hurley didn't want to, his conscience wouldn't let him not take one to Sawyer. The man was ignorant and an idiot, Hurley hated him even though he'd barely met him. Still, having convinced Charlie to come with him, he wandered across the beach with what was left of the food from the plane.

"About time," was all Sawyer uttered when he took the meal from Hurley, he was hungry. He went back and sat down by the fire, pealing the wrapping off the meal.

But Hurley and Charlie were still there, watching him. Charlie beckoned to him in the most ridiculous manner.

"Do you think we should give one to her?" Charlie asked, deadly serious. He still couldn't look at Kate without going pale.

"Yeah," Sawyer replied, incredulous that they would even think of asking this. "She'll starve if you don't."

Charlie and Hurley exchanged looks, and at Charlie's prompting, Hurley asked, "Can you give it to her?" He held the meal out, not looking in Kate's direction, as if making eye contact with her might be dangerous. Virtually forcing the meal into Sawyer's hands, Charlie and Hurley hurried away.

Sitting back down, he passed the meal to Kate. "Enjoy," he murmured sarcastically.

She smiled, "Sure," she replied, and then more seriously, "Thank you." He didn't reply, so she opened her meal, hunger making what would have been a particularly unappetising cottage pie taste rather nice.


End file.
